


That's Just Like, Your Opinion, Man

by Lalalli



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Ghosts, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 20:30:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12066447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lalalli/pseuds/Lalalli
Summary: The foundation of Fitzsimmons’ friendship has always been science and logic.  Which is what makes it so weird when Jemma starts insisting that her bedroom is haunted.





	That's Just Like, Your Opinion, Man

**Author's Note:**

> I totally freaked myself out by reading about Dear David at midnight when I was home by myself with the baby while my husband was out chaperoning the homecoming dance. And my cats were being lazy assholes and refused to protect me or comfort me, so I hunkered down in the nursery with the baby until my husband got home. And apparently the way I deal with fear is by turning it into fluff. So. You're welcome.
> 
> Title from The Big Lebowski, which I watched before I started reading real life ghost stories on the Internet, and will always be the best use of my time.
> 
> Please forgive any typos or sentence fragments or nonsense. Proofreading is for losers.

Fitz has been best friends with Jemma Simmons for ten years, her roommate for two years, and secretly in love with her for seven months. Seven months is admittedly a long time to be secretly in love with someone, but Fitz spent six of those months convinced that it was a phase that would pass and the seventh month too chickenshit to say anything. The last thing he wants to do is make things awkward between him and Jemma. He’s hoping that she never finds out.

Which is why it’s super inconvenient when Jemma decides to just climb into his bed at two in the morning.

“What’re you doing?” Fitz mumbles, his words heavy with sleep. He unthinkingly shifts closer to the other end of his bed to make room for Jemma.

“There’s a ghost in my room,” Jemma whispers back.

It’s a response that definitely merits a lot of follow-up questions, but Fitz is way too tired to have a discussion with her, so he says, “Oh, okay,” and rolls back onto his stomach to fall back asleep.

When Fitz wakes up the next morning, Jemma’s already gone and he’s half-convinced he dreamt it except for that there are a few long strands of brown hair stuck to the pillow next to him. He pulls on pajama pants over his boxers and walks into the kitchen, where Jemma is frying bacon and acting aggressively normal.

“Morning Fitz!” Jemma greets him, her voice way too cheerful for 8:30 on a Saturday morning.

Fitz walks straight to the coffee pot. “Morning.” He pours himself an extra large cup of coffee and takes a long sip, giving her time to bring it up.

Jemma turns away from him. “Scrambled or over-easy?”

It’s up to him, then. Fitz clears his throat. “So. Ghosts?”

Jemma freezes for a moment, then continues to crack eggs into a bowl. “Scrambled it is.”

Fitz raises an eyebrow. “Do we believe in ghosts now?”

Jemma rolls her eyes and huffs. “Obviously, in retrospect, it was just a nightmare.” She grabs a whisk and focuses intently on scrambling the eggs in front of her. “A very scary, very realistic nightmare.”

Fitz slides onto a barstool on the other side of the kitchen island. “Yeah? What about?”

Jemma shrugs as she pours the eggs into a frying pan. “I just dreamt that there was a man in my room.” She turns and glares at Fitz. “Don’t,” she warns, sensing that he’s about to make a joke. “You know what I mean. A scary man.” She turns back to the stove. “Completely covered in third degree burns. And he was sitting at my desk chair and staring at me for the longest time. Just - sustained eye contact. No blinking at all. It was so creepy. And then I woke up and I thought I saw him actually sitting in my chair. And I freaked out. Clearly.”

“Clearly,” Fitz echoes.

Jemma slides some eggs and bacon onto two plates that already have toast on them. “I’m sorry I bothered you. It won’t happen again.”

“You didn’t bother me.” Fitz grins at her. “Feel free to come and get me any time you need rescuing,” he teases her.

Even though he says it as a joke, he really means it. He would 100% be on board with Jemma joining him in his bed on a regular basis. But just because he means it, doesn’t mean he’s expecting it.

So it’s a surprise when Jemma dives into his bed again two nights later.

“What’s happening?” Fitz groans, rubbing at his eyes.

“He’s trying to kill me!” Jemma hisses, panicked.

Fitz’s first thought is that there’s some sort of home intruder in their flat, here to take their crappy television. His heart rate skyrockets and he jumps out of bed. “What? Who? Where?”

“He’s in my room! He came back!”

Fitz freezes as he’s searching his closet for a baseball bat or golf club that clearly doesn’t exist because Fitz and sports do not mix. He turns slowly to look at Simmons. “He’s back? Who’s back?”

Jemma lurches forward and grabs on tightly to Fitz’s arm. “The ghost! I thought he was a nightmare, but he’s not! He’s here!”

Fitz sighs deeply and drags the palm of his hand down his face. “Simmons, do you need me to go to your room and inspect your closet for the boogeyman?”

Jemma glares at him. “No, because he was not in my closet. He was right next to my bed.”

Fitz squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay, I’ll go look.” He takes a step towards the door, but Jemma pulls his arm towards her, causing him to stumble. Fitz looks at her, exasperated. “What’re you doing?”

“Don’t leave me alone!” Jemma hisses. “What if he comes here?”

“Then we’re screwed either way because I don’t know what you’re expecting me to do against a ghost,” Fitz points out.

Jemma steps in closer to him, pressing herself against his side. “I’ll come with you,” she decides. “Safety in numbers.”

“It’ll be fine,” Fitz assures her. “I’m sure in the morning you’ll realize it was just another overreaction.”

“I’m as clear-headed as I’ve ever been,” Jemma informs him, half hiding behind him as they walk to her room, still clinging tightly to his arm. “Maybe he’s not a ghost and maybe there’s a scientific explanation for it, but he definitely wants to hurt me.”

Jemma’s so certain that it’s making Fitz doubt whether or not he’ll truly find Jemma’s room empty. Maybe there is someone in there. Maybe he should make like Rapunzel and grab a frying pan, just in case.

Fitz hesitates as he starts to turn the doorknob. “Ready?”

“No.”

“Great.” Fitz gently pushes the door open a crack, scanning the room as he slowly inches inside. He breathes a sigh of relief when he sees the room is empty. “All clear,” he tells Jemma, opening the door all the way. “You really had me freaked out for a second there.”

Jemma follows him into the room, looking around. She freezes and latches onto Fitz’s arm again. Fitz isn’t exactly enjoying having Jemma all over him, mostly because she’s obviously scared and frightened and it would be shitty of him to enjoy that. But it does make him hope that it happens again under better circumstances.

“Fitz.” She buries her face into his shoulder. “He was here. Oh my god oh my god he was here.”

Fitz is way too sleep-deprived for this. “Simmons.”

“No, Fitz, listen. Listen.” Jemma points towards her desk. “Listen. I always push my chair into my desk before bed so I don’t bump into it in the middle of the night if I have to use the bathroom. And look! Now it’s pulled out again.”

“Or maybe you just forgot tonight,” Fitz suggests.

Jemma looks up at him pleadingly. “Please don’t make me sleep in here tonight. I’m freaking out. I don’t want to die.”

Fitz rolls his eyes and slings his arm around her shoulders. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.”

\---

The next morning, Jemma explains what happened.

She apparently had a dream two nights ago that she was at the library and a little girl came up to her and asked, “You’ve seen Dear Daniel, haven’t you?”

Jemma, obviously confused, asked, “Who?”

“Dear Daniel. He only visits at midnight and you can ask him two questions if you start by saying ‘Dear Daniel.’ But don’t ask him a third question, or else he’ll kill you.”

Which would’ve been creepy enough, even before Jemma dreamt that the burnt up man was sitting in her desk chair again. And Jemma, even though she was dreaming, somehow remembered her previous dream and asked, “Dear Daniel, how did you die?”

He grunted, “There was a fire at work.”

Jemma asked, “Dear Daniel, why are you here?”

And he responded, “Someone started it on purpose.”

Jemma, her heart caught in her throat, whispered, “Who?”

Dear Daniel just stared at her in response. And just as Jemma realized that she had asked a third question, Dear Daniel stood up and Jemma woke up gasping for breath.

Fitz and Jemma talk through all possible scientific explanations for what happened and why it is impossible for a man in her dreams to kill her in real life. They talk about why it might’ve seemed like the chair had moved when Jemma is convinced she pushed it in and why her dreams seem to have a linear narrative when dreams usually don’t really work that way. Science is usually Jemma’s security blanket and talking it through usually helps her when she’s feeling worried or scared, and when they’re done talking, Fitz thinks Jemma really does feel better about the whole thing.

A week later, Jemma crawls into his bed again.

“Did you have another nightmare?” Fitz asks.

“No. My chair moved again.”

“Jemma.”

“I know it sounds crazy, okay? But I keep finding my things in places I didn’t leave them and my chair keeps moving and I can’t stop thinking about that man trying to kill me.”

Fitz turns on his lamp and sits up. “Ghosts aren’t real,” he reminds her.

“See, I know that and you know that, but Dear Daniel doesn’t really seem to know that.”

Fitz doesn’t believe in ghosts. It goes against all scientific reason. But he also knows that up until a few weeks ago, Jemma would have scoffed at the idea of ghosts. Jemma is the most pragmatic, logical, scientifically-minded person he knows. So he has to take her seriously. He would be a pretty shitty best friend if he didn’t. Fitz scratches behind his ear as he considers. “Do you want to switch rooms?”

Jemma blinks at him. “What?”

“Well, he hasn’t found you in here yet, right?” Fitz points out. “So maybe if we switch, he’ll leave you alone.”

Jemma hesitates, biting her lip. “I guess we can try that. But it’s not really the room that’s the issue. I just feel safer when I’m with you.”

Fitz is still trying to figure out how to respond to that when Jemma lies back into the pillows and pulls the covers up to her chin. “Don’t worry,” she yawns. “We don’t have to switch just yet. I’ll figure it out.”

\---

“Figuring it out” ends up involving Daisy, a nanny cam, the official Ghost Hunters starter pack, and a cat.

“Cats can sense the supernatural,” Daisy says with authority, plopping her gray tabby, Chairman Meow, on their sofa.

Fitz stares at Chairman Meow distrustfully. “What’s the plan here? Assuming there is a plan.”

Apparently, the plan is to gather information on Dear Daniel for the next week - when he’s the most active, if there’s any patterns in his behavior, if there are any clues as to his motivations. There isn’t really much a plan beyond that, but Fitz can understand waiting to gather data before developing a plan of action. That’s just proper scientific method.

And the plan also involves Jemma sleeping in his bed for the next week, so he approves of the plan. He would also approve of a plan that just lets the ghost occupy Jemma’s room and Jemma moving into his bed permanently. He’d be cool with that.

The cat, though. The cat he’s not cool with. He mostly just meowls outside his bedroom door, begging to be let in. The second night, Fitz gives in and lets him into the bedroom, where he promptly curls up behind Jemma’s knees and falls asleep. It’s a reminder of what Fitz has wanted but has been failing to do ever since Jemma started joining him in his bed.

Fitz’ bed is large enough that he and Jemma don’t really need to touch. Pop culture made him believe that they would inevitably curl into each other in the middle of the night and wake up with their legs entangled, Jemma’s hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. Evidently, movies and television have lied to him all his life, because they’ve always woken up still on their respective sides of the bed.

And now there’s a cat in between them.

The next couple of nights are uneventful except for Chairman Meow trying to sit on Fitz’s face in the middle of the night and suffocate him in his sleep. Still, though. Everything about their bedtime routine feels so stupidly domestic that he can’t help but feel this sharp pang of want as they lounge next to each other in bed before going to sleep, scrolling on their phones and leaning into each other every once in awhile to share a cute animal picture or a funny tweet.

And on the third morning in a row of waking up next to Jemma, her hair glowing a soft bronze in the pale yellow sunlight shining through the window, her face slack with sleep, drool adorably dribbling out of the corner of her mouth, Fitz thinks it’s only a matter of time before he lets it slip that he’s in love with her.

And the fact that that’s the night that Chairman Meow starts freaking out doesn’t exactly help matters.

Fitz isn’t exactly sure which he registers first, Chairman Meow’s incessant yowling or Jemma burrowing her way into his arms. “What’s happening?”

“It’s midnight,” Jemma whispers. “It’s midnight, exactly, and Dear Daniel is on the other side of the door.”

“You don’t know that, Jemma.”

“Look at Chairman Meow.”

Fitz sits up and looks at the foot of his bed. Chairman Meow is crouched in front of the door, peering through the crack underneath, the fur on his tail standing up as though he’s been shocked by electricity. He stands up on his hind legs and scratches at the door.

Fitz sighs. “He just wants to be let out.” He throws the blankets off his legs.

Jemma pulls on his arm. “What are you doing?”

Fitz blinks at her. “Opening the door for him.”

“Are you mental?” Jemma hisses. “You’re going to let Dear Daniel in!”

“Chairman Meow needs to use the litter box.”

“Chairman Meow can sense a threatening presence on the other side!”

“Yeah, because when I feel threatened, I start shouting out, ‘Hey! Over here! I’m in here!’”

Jemma’s hand flies over Fitz’s mouth. “Listen.” She slowly removes her hand from his face.

Fitz holds his breath, expecting to hear moaning or floorboards creaking or a metal hook scraping against the window. But he hears nothing except for their breathing. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly.” Jemma nods towards where Chairman Meow is back on the mattress kneading Fitz’s bedspread. “Chairman Meow stopped meowing.”

“See. Told you it’s fine.”

“Yeah. Because now it’s 12:01.” Jemma pulls the covers back over the both of them and snuggles back into his side, burying her face into his shoulder. Fitz hesitates for a moment before letting himself put his arm around her and drawing her closer to him. She’s obviously scared, and he wants her to feel better. Miraculously, holding her seems to help.

It’s just his luck, really. He finally has Jemma in his bed - in his arms, even. And he can’t even enjoy it.

Stupid ghosts.

\-----

Anyone observing Daisy from a distance would probably classify her fashion sense as goth, but that doesn’t really fully encapsulate Daisy’s entire aesthetic. There’s no way Daisy should be lumped into the same category as that 40-year-old lady with pigtails on NCIS. Most people who considers themselves to be goth actually put effort into their looks. Daisy rolls out of bed with yesterday’s smudged eyeliner, pulls on her old uniform skirt from high school (before she dropped out and ran away from her orphanage and subsequently got taken in by May, who probably secretly works for the CIA) and the hole-ridden black sweater she swiped from the lost-and-found bin at the church that hosts the AA meetings she attends to get free cookies. Daisy puts the least amount of effort possible into appearing to be an actual functional adult.

Which isn’t to say that Daisy isn’t awesome. She is. She hacks into FBI databases for fun and has her black belt in taekwondo and is learning Mandarin and Cantonese from May. But she doesn’t really get excited about anything.

Except for ghosts, apparently. It’s actually really unnerving to see her so excited about this whole ghost thing. Not that she’s skipping around or smiling with actual teeth or anything. But when she comes over the next day to show them the footage from the motion-detecting cameras, she talks with genuine interest and enthusiasm.

“So most of the footage that the cameras picked up was, you know, Chairman Meow, obviously. But check out this one.” Daisy pulls up a video of Jemma’s room on her laptop and presses play. Fitz leans over Jemma’s shoulder, watching intently, but - nothing happens.

When the video ends, Jemma wrinkles her nose. “I don’t get it. There wasn’t even movement in that.”

Daisy restarts the video. “Keep your eye on the chair.”

Fitz leans in closer, focusing his attention on Jemma’s chair. At first, nothing happens. And then slowly, almost imperceptibly, it starts to pull away from Jemma’s desk.

Jemma reaches behind, blindly grabbing Fitz’s hand and squeezing tight. “I told you I wasn’t forgetting to push in my chair.” Even as she’s saying that she knew it all along, her voice shakes as though she didn’t quite believe it herself until now.

“That’s not all.” Daisy pulls up another video, this time of their living room, with their open kitchen in the background. “Keep your eye on the refrigerator.”

“Don’t tell me the ghost is stealing our food,” Fitz jokes.

Daisy swats his shoulder and shushes him. “Just watch.”

Fitz is half-expecting the refrigerator door to open, but what happens is far less dramatic. Instead, one of the photos on the door falls down and slides underneath the fridge.

Jemma looks towards the kitchen. “I didn’t even notice it was missing.”

Fitz walks over the the fridge and lowers himself to his hands and knees to look under the fridge. He reaches underneath and slides the photo out.

“Which one is it?” Jemma asks.

“Peru.” Fitz reaches up and pins their selfie back on the fridge. “We should probably get stronger magnets.”

Fitz expects Daisy to protest, but instead it’s Jemma who says, her voice sharp, “Yes, magnets will definitely help my desk chair stay in its spot.” When Fitz turns to look at her, her expression softens. “Look, as individual events, I can find a logical explanation for each one. But when we put it all together, I just…” She shrugs, looking a bit lost and embarrassed.

Fitz rubs the back of his neck. “Look, Simmons. If you’re scared, then you’re scared. You don’t have to explain yourself to me. You’re still the smartest person I know.”

Jemma rolls her eyes. “Don’t patronize me, Fitz.”

“I’m not!” Fitz protests. “I’m just saying...we’ll fix it, okay?”

Jemma nods. “Yeah.” Her smile is small, but appreciative. “Okay.”

\----

It becomes a regular occurrence for Chairman Meow walks up to the bedroom door at exactly midnight and meows incessantly until 12:01, after which he walks calmly back to the bed and curls up again on top of Fitz and Jemma, who, in turn, are curled up around each other.

By the end of the week, Jemma doesn’t even stiffen next to him or dig her nails into his arm like she usually does. She just sort of burrows her head deeper into his chest and groans, as though the meowing is a minor inconvenience rather than a sign of impending doom.

Fitz thinks he could handle 60 seconds of meowing every night if it means that he gets to cuddle with Jemma the whole time. He thinks Jemma might even be receptive to the idea of shifting their friendship to something more, if he were to bring it up. This could be their new normal.

So of course, that’s when the ghost decides to make its presence super fucking obvious.

It starts off the same, with Chairman Meow crying at the door at midnight. But then at 12:01, three things happen.

Chairman Meow dives under the bed. Fitz’s poster of space falls off the wall, crashing onto the floor. And everything goes dark.

Not that it wasn’t dark to begin with. All the lights were already turned off. They were sleeping. But there was still the soft glow of the numbers on Fitz’s alarm clock. The light shining through the window from the street lamps outside. The light from the power cord connected to the laptop on Fitz’s desk. And they all go out.

Fitz has never really considered himself to be scared of the dark, and maybe it’s that it is unnaturally pitch black in his room or that his apartment is probably haunted, but right now he is profoundly terrified.

“What do we do?” Fitz whispers, clinging to Jemma just as tightly as she’s squeezing him.

“I usually just close my eyes. For some reason, it makes me feel better. Like, if I can’t see him, then maybe he can’t see me.”

“Sounds legit.” Fitz leans back into his pillows, bringing Jemma with him. “Think we’ll be able to sleep?”

“Not a chance.”

“I don’t care how much it costs to break our lease, we are looking for a new place tomorrow.”

“Shhhh. If he hears us, he’ll know where we are.”

“I think he already knows where we are,” Fitz points out.

“Just shut up and hold me.”

“I see you’re just as bossy as ever, Doc.” Fitz stiffens. The voice comes out of seemingly nowhere. It’s harsh and guttural and...strangely teasing and affectionate?

Jemma gasps and sits up with a start. “Will?”

\----

Fitz knows it’s ridiculous of him to be jealous of Will. Will and Jemma broke up three years ago and Jemma has said repeatedly that she’s over him and he doesn’t even have a graduate degree and his non-corporeal body is covered in, like, eighth degree burns, that’s how far beyond third degree they are. Plus, he’s dead. There’s that, too.

But he can’t quite help but resent all the time Jemma spends talking to him and helping him resolve his unfinished business and studying how to help him “cross over”.

And Fitz feels a little guilty that Jemma is so grateful for his help in figuring out how to tether Will to the other dimension that he keeps jumping between when really, Fitz is just trying to speed up the process for purely selfish reasons. He’s ready for the whole ordeal to be over with.

When it comes time for Will to cross over, Fitz politely hangs back to let Jemma say her goodbyes. He swears he was going to give them privacy, but then he hears his name and, well. It’s hard not to eavesdrop when they’re talking about him.

“You and Fitz, huh? You know, I sort of had a feeling that was going to happen, sooner or later.”

Fitz is expecting Jemma to correct him, to tell him that it’s not like that, but instead she just flushes and says, “Yeah,” like she’s embarrassed but also just really _happy_.

Fitz is going to be so disappointed if he’s getting his hopes up for nothing.

Still, though. It’s probably inappropriate to bring up the possibility of a romantic relationship the same day Jemma has to say goodbye to her dead ex-boyfriend. And for all he’s hoping to talk to her, when they get home, Jemma’s sort of walking around in a daze, completing tasks on autopilot, her eyes not really focused on anything, and Fitz knows from experience that she’s working something out in her head. He doesn’t want to interrupt.

So he showers and changes to his pajamas and squeezes Jemma’s shoulder, saying, “G’night, Simmons,” even though she probably won’t hear him, before retreating to his room to read in his bed.

He’s not expecting Jemma to come to talk to him, but he’s not surprised either when she knocks softly on his door and hovers in the doorway. She usually says goodnight before going to bed.

“Don’t tell me your room is still haunted,” Fitz jokes, smiling at her.

The corner of Jemma’s lip twitches. “Not quite.” She wrings her hand in front of her, clearly building up to something. “I like sleeping in your bed,” she confesses.

Fitz’s heart stops. His mouth is dry when he asks, cautious, “You want to trade rooms after all?”

Jemma shoots him a look of fond exasperation. “I know you’re not that dense, Fitz.”

“No,” Fitz admits. He closes his book and sets it to the side. “If this is still about you being scared, I-”

“It’s not,” Jemma rushes to interrupt. “I like your bed because you’re in it.” She flushes. “And, yeah, it helped when I was scared, but it’s more than that. Talking to Will made me realize that we’re not guaranteed - I mean, we don’t - I -” Jemma stops and huffs impatiently. “It’s been ten years, Fitz. I don’t want to waste any more time not being with you.”

Fitz doesn’t know how to respond to that. All the words get stuck in his throat. So he just shifts over and pats Jemma’s side of the bed (because to be honest, he’s been thinking of it as her side of the bed since that first night she crawled under the covers with him).

Jemma worries her lip, then sits next to him. “I don’t just mean being literally with you in your bed. I mean, I do, but -”

Fitz leans forward and softly presses his lips to hers. Jemma’s staring at him when he pulls away, mouth open in shock. Fitz wets his lips before saying, his voice hoarse, “You know I’m in love with you, right?” For all he’s certain that she wants this too, it still feels like jumping off a cliff, all heart in his throat and exhilarating uncertainty.

Jemma surges forward, her lips parted, kissing him hungrily, almost desperately. She cups his face in one hand, her fingertips to tracing the shell of his ear, the stubble on his jawline, the slope of his neck, and twisting his shirt around her fingers in the other, using it to hold him close, as though he would even think about moving away. Fitz can barely think, his hands moving on autopilot, skimming down her ribs, up her back, underneath her shirt.

“Good,” Jemma sighs, when Fitz moves his lips to kiss down her neck. “I love you, too.”

\-----

“But what about the little girl in the library?” Daisy asks later that week. “Did that ever get explained?”

Fitz pets the kittens purring in his lap. “I’m not worried. We have Fidel Catstro and Benito Mussokitty to protect us.”

“So what? You’re just surrendering your room?” Daisy asks, her face scrunching in disbelief. “That’s quitter talk.”

Jemma shrugs. “She can have my bed if she wants.” She smiles at Fitz. “My new one’s way better.”


End file.
